乐播传媒

3rd Place Winner

Post 1:

听听 听I signed up for the SWAP program for Ling 1900. I was really excited when I heard about SWAP because I studied abroad in Germany for a year, and every Wednesday we had "English day." This became the only day of the week where we would speak English because every other day my roommates, friends, and I would be speaking German (to help me learn). At the beginning, my friends were very nervous to speak English with me, but as the year went on it became really fun for all of us: they enjoyed the opportunity to speak English with a native English speaker, and I really enjoyed helping work through some of the issues they were having in English. This experience is why I signed up for SWAP. I love working with people and helping people from different backgrounds, and this is a perfect opportunity to do both. I have not yet received my SWAP employee partner but should in the upcoming weeks. Last week I attended the SWAP training, and our group had a really good discussion about different and beneficial/non-beneficial ways of teaching English. Something I learned when helping my German friends is to prioritize mistakes and correct them after they have finished their sentences in order to prevent them from being discouraged. I'm really looking forward to meeting my partner and working with them. I think this opportunity is going to teach me much more than what I am going to be "teaching."听

Post 2:

听听 听I just started meeting with my SWAP partner after we had initial difficulties with communication and determining the best meeting time for both of us. After finally finding a time, we set a time for our first meeting. I first met with my partner's supervisor because she told me my partner was particularly shy, and English lessons were especially intimidating for her. Going into our first meeting, I tried to be as sensitive as I could about being nervous to speak a new language. This is a feeling I am also familiar with because of experiences I have had abroad when speaking another language. It is not only intimidating, but also very discouraging when your interlocutor does not make a significant effort to make you feel comfortable to speak and judges your mistakes. During our first meeting we went through a verbal and reading assessment in order to determine the best level book for us to work with. This was harder than I expected because I think my partner has a great foundation of English, but she was nervous to speak with me and especially afraid to make mistakes. Slowly, after working more together, I noticed her opening up more, speaking more, and becoming more confident to speak with me just within our first two meetings. I am very excited to continue working with her and helping her obtain her goal of reading and writing more, speaking more with the English speaking community in Boulder, and preparing her for future conversations with her daughter's teachers and friends' parents. Although we have just started working together, it has already been a tremendous experience, and I predict I will end up learning just as much if not more from her and our experience together than I could ever teach her.

Post 3:

听听 听This was my first semester with Ling 1900, and it was a super incredible experience. I wish I knew about the program earlier in my time as CU, so I could've participated during previous semesters. I am doing the SWAP program, and it is super awesome because my partner and I have gotten very close. At the beginning, we were having some communication difficulties and my partner was quite shy. It was definitely more challenging at first because I wasn't positive she was completely sold on the idea of doing English lessons. But, slowly as we started working more together she has really started to open up to me, and it is incredible to watch her becoming increasingly confident with her English. During our first couple of sessions, she was fairly shy, and our conversations were quite simple. However, in our last couple of sessions, she has told me all about her family, and our conversation became almost our whole lesson. We have also had many conversations about her native country of Nepal, and I have particularly enjoyed learning more about her culture. At our last meeting, we decided to continue our lessons into next semester and are going to include one of her coworkers who is also from Nepal and does not yet have English lessons. I think this will be a great way for both of them to continue feeling more confident with their English, and hopefully help them be able to practice with each other. I am so excited that I will be continuing with my lessons and cannot wait to continue learning just as much as both from my partners as they learn from our lessons.

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